


Axial Tilt

by gillywulf



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 14:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10900926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gillywulf/pseuds/gillywulf
Summary: The Mountain Men get to them first.





	Axial Tilt

**Author's Note:**

> I realize this is bad but have it anyway.

From the moment you woke up on the dropship, everything is different. Wells is at your side for the first time in almost a year, you are out of solitary, and you are strapped into a massive machine hurtling towards Earth that could explode in the air, on impact, or maybe once you hit the atmosphere. 

Like most change in your life, this isn’t a good one. 

Any moment now your whole life could end as a flaming pancake. 

And your former best friend who was the reason you are here would be right next to you. 

Pancake and on fire just the same. 

 

/

 

You’re not a pancake and neither is Wells. No one is. A few kids die on impact, but that was from their own stupidity. If you unbuckle your seatbelt in a hunk of metal careening towards Earth before impact, you deserve what you get. 

The hundred of you gather near the door and debate for a long moment about going out. You are _decidedly_ against it; the impact is one thing but the ground _isn’t_ survivable yet, but Bellamy Blake and his _sister_ Octavia laugh and then you’re outside and it’s beautiful. 

It’s very likely that you’ve drawn the ground as you’ve imagined it more than one hundred times and clearly you’ve never gotten it quite right. The real thing is _that_ much more colorful, _that_ much more full and wild, and _that_ much more unpredictable, if the hissing canisters thrown into the clearing are any indication. 

No one remembers what happens next. 

 

//

 

The room you wake up to is stark white. You feel entirely disoriented, because this doesn’t feel as foreign as it should, but you’re on the ground. You frown because, well, you _thought_ you were. There’s a painting on the wall that you once saw on a tablet and everything goes a little off-filter. How could that have survived the bombs, but the rest of society didn’t? 

A knock on the door startles you. You quickly find something - a blunt object - and have it ready. There’s an old man’s face in the door’s porthole that attempts to look kind and approachable. You find a sharpness that you don’t trust. 

“Hello,” he greets as he carefully opens the door, “I’m President Dante Wallace. What’s your name?” He’s wearing a _really_ old suit that’s covered in sweat lines which only add to your ill feeling of him. You don’t lower the - you glance to your hands - lamp as you answer him. 

“Clarke Griffin. Where am I? Where’s everyone else?” Your grip on the lamp tightens as his smile softens (mechanically, you think). 

“It is an absolute pleasure to meet you, Ms. Griffin. All of your friends are in rooms exactly like this, finishing their decontamination, just like you. Welcome to Mount Weather” Mount Weather. You...made it? Mount Weather was just a point on a map, maybe containing some old irradiated supplies. There weren’t supposed to be people _living_ inside. You don’t know what to say. “Please excuse me, but there are a lot of you and I have to continue meeting your people. Maya will be in shortly with some clothes for you. Make yourself at home” Dante smiles again and bows out of the door. 

Why does this make your stomach turn?

 

///

 

The next few weeks are...weird. You and the rest of the hundred come to live in a dorm with beds stacked high on top of one another, in clothes marked by 100 of stains, and too-rich food that your stomach can’t handle. The people are eager to make friends and bring you into their society. Even your own people jump right in. A boy named Jasper takes a liking to Maya (which you get, because Maya is pretty and the nicest person). 

Finn - who you slowly became friends with - shares your sentiment. He’s gotten some weird questions from random people about his blood type and he got hives from bumping into Cage Wallace, Dante’s son, on one occasion. 

Things only got weirder at the breach. 

A bunch of the hundred were attending a class with natives when the teacher stopped mid word and started choking. A bunch of students followed suit and yet, none of the hundred were affected. Wells had been there, and though your truce is shaky, he doesn’t hesitate to explain the effects of radiation poisoning. 

But the next day, you look up from your breakfast and there’s one of the kids who was definitely in that class, perfectly fine and already chowing down on his food. Finn and Wells look equally confused and alarmed. So you go to the source. 

“Dante,” he looks up from his computer with that same calm expression you’d love to kick, “how did those people heal so quick?” you demand. 

“Unfortunately, we who live in the Mountain are susceptible to radiation. Thankfully, we’ve had years and decades to develop a way to help us survive. It is very advanced science that I’m not sure even I follow” He almost looks sincere. 

“I’m immune, I’d like to leave” His smile gets sharper and he closes the computer. 

“I’m afraid I can’t let you. That would require opening airlocks that can only be used to supply gathering and especially with the savages outside, I wouldn’t feel comfortable with your safety at such a risk” That was new information. 

“‘Savages’? There are people out there?” He nods solemnly. 

“Yes, people - though, it’s hard to really call them people - who became deranged from radiation and who spend their days killing one another. That is one of the reasons Mount Weather is a fortress. We cannot allow them to hurt us, especially since they are likely too wild to know what they are doing” You smell the bullshit again. 

“In that case, thank you for taking us in before they could get to us” His grin grows ever sharper. 

“Our pleasure” If that doesn’t make your status as prisoners definitive, you don’t know what does. 

 

////

 

Monty, maybe the nicest boy on the entire dropship, tugs at your sleeve on the way back to the dorm after dinner. He doesn’t make eye contact. 

“The transfusion IVs led up into the ceiling” he says before stepping up his pace and matching Miller’s speed a few feet ahead. It’s a baffling interaction, sure, but you get the message. You slip off to a restricted area and take the elevator as high up as it will go. 

The absolute last thing you expect to see when the doors open is a near-naked woman hanging limply by her feet.

Her heart monitor beeps infrequently but proves she’s still alive. You lose your head for a half second and swat at the lever to lower her to the floor. Her back tattoo curves more and more the lower she gets. You drop to your knees and try to remember everything your mom taught you about dealing with unconscious people.

Dull eyes stare back at you and you’re breathless. The woman’s face is sharp and you can already see her gearing up for an offensive, so you lean back on your heels away from her and raise your hands defensively. 

“Hey, hey, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m a prisoner here just like you” Her eyes narrow and glance down at herself, then back to you. 

“Just like me?” she scoffs. 

“Why are you up here like this? Did you have some sort of crime?” You carefully reach out and help prop her back up against the wall. She laughs. 

“My crime is being born outside of these walls. All of us are” Only then do you realize that there’s more to this room than the bleeding post. There are countless cages as far back as you can see and each of them has a person stripped and crammed inside. Your heart clenches painfully in your chest. 

“How can I help you?” She frowns and stares at you for a long moment. She seems to be considering you, deciding if you’re worthy. She must find something because she straightens a little. 

“What is your name?” she asks. 

“Clarke Griffin. You?”

“I am Anya. To help me and everyone here, I need to get to the Commander. I need to get out and it _must_ be me” You nod. 

“Stay alive for a half hour, I’ll be right back”

 

/////

 

You’re not... _completely_ sure how you managed to get out. You know you fidgeted in the elevator the whole ride down fearing you’d get caught and that Monty slipped you some kind of communication device along with a promise to help you any way he can. 

Finn and Wells look baffled as you beg them for some kind of internal diversion, that is until Wells shrugs and slugs Finn across the face. You think you see them both give you a thumbs up from the bottom of the guard pile that you know will only get crowded from the rest of the hundred, but you’re not sure, and you have other things to worry about. 

There’s definitely a part where you and Anya are being chased and there’s a waterfall and then she’s ripping something out of her arm with her teeth. A lot happens in a short space so you don’t give yourself a hard time that you don’t remember everything. 

So naturally it’s completely understandable that you never see the rock Anya smashes into your head. 

 

//////

 

You wake up with your arms and legs tied and Anya’s shoulder in your stomach. Before you can do much about it, you pass out again. 

 

///////

 

The sun is low in the sky by the time you’re fully conscious and able to stay that way. Every one of Anya’s steps is labored and you’ve suggested she let you walk more than once, after all you’re not going to run away, you need to see the Commander too. She merely growls and you don’t offer again. 

For a long time, you let yourself do what you never had time to when you first landed, you take in the ground (discounting the fact that it’s all you can see). You immediately love the way it smells. It has a freshness that you’ve never smelled with the cleanliness of rain, the tanginess of the leaves releasing all kinds of chemicals you looked at in earth studies, and the leaves Anya churns up with her shuffling steps also kick up the faint musk of decay. You’re addicted. 

Eventually, your ‘captor’ stumbles, crashing you both to the ground. The groans that follow are loud, but neither of you really make any attempt to shift, from exhaustion and disorientation. The voice - when it speaks - shocks you. 

“Chit osir gada hir in?” a man said suddenly. You start and do your best to flip over, but Anya only groans again. 

“Shof op” she mumbles. The man is tall, dark, and handsome. His mohawk is cut low making his (again) sharp eyes stand out more, but the bottom half of his face is obscured by a bandana. His clothes are an eclectic mix of things, but still make the statement of ‘warm and protected’, though, the sword strapped to his back helps with that too. 

“Who are you?” you can’t help but ask. Those eyes find you and you freeze. They’re much sharper when they’re pinned on you. 

“Everyone here who needs to know who I am does, but who are you?” He crouches beside your head, eyes blazing with curiosity. 

“I’m Clarke Griffin. Me and one hundred other kids were in the giant metal thing that fell from the sky and now all of my people and many of yours’ are trapped in Mount Weather” His face goes tight at the mention of the mountain and he glances back to Anya for a moment. 

“This is the truth?” he asks. You’re not sure who he’s asking, but you nod anyway. After a moment of deliberation, he nods as well. “Well Clarke Griffin, since you brought my friend back to the world of the living, my name is Lincoln” He slashes easily at the vine the binds your feet and lifts Anya into his arms like it’s nothing. You follow because what else are you going to do?

 

////////

 

It’s a grounder village. An honest-to-god village with people like Anya and Lincoln who aren’t hopelessly deformed or violent like you half expected. Everyone is mostly normal and they all stare at you with an open mix of horror, fear, and fascination. The buildings are clear remnants of a time long gone crossed with far more primitive looking building design, but it’s charming in a way you’d never experienced. You want to sketch it all. 

Lincoln walks through the entirety of the village unbothered, Anya attempting to look scary and unapproachable while being carried by (what you assume is) her friend. The three of you clear the village into (what you assume is) a war camp. Hefty men and gnarly women glare at you, their weapons gleaming. You follow Lincoln’s example and try to look as unbothered as possible. It’s a lie though, you’re very bothered. 

He stops just outside the largest tent in the camp and an even larger man with a face tattoo and a bushy beard stands before him. 

“Heda will want to see Anya before the healer. And she will want to see the girl” he announces confidently. The man frowns at you before nodding and stepping aside. The minute you step inside the tent, your whole world tilts on its axis. 

The girl sitting on the large intimidating throne is as young as you are, but her face is smeared with black warpaint and there is a knife in her hand and a sword at her side. Her face is set with a seriousness you could never match.

And yet, all you can think about is how beautiful she is. There’s something delicate about her, easily missed but impossible to forget. You think then that she’s ruined you for women. Possibly for anyone. 

Lincoln falls to his knee, setting Anya carefully down on the ground just as the girl springs to her feet, eyes wide at the sight of the pimp woman. She doesn’t move to touch her. 

“I have returned from the dead to fulfill my duty to the Commander” Anya declares with a fist to her heart. or a breath, the girl seems stunned. Then, gorgeously, she grins, before choking it back to a thin lipped smile. 

“Your Commander thanks you. Once I received word that you’d been lost to the Mountain, I-” she stops, breathes, “I was worried. I’m glad to see my mentor whole and returned” Anya shrugs. 

“Mostly whole, thanks to her” she jerks her head in your direction and you feel your world tilt _just_ a little more. Her eyes are green. They swallow you whole and feast of the way your heart stutters relentlessly in your chest. She must know, she must be able to _see_ the way she’s just changed _everything_ for you. She folds her hands behind her back.

“And you are?” Her voice is heavy and carries a weight across the small space, when before it was light, almost gentle in the way she greeted her friend. 

“Clarke. Clarke Griffin. The Mountain has my people too” Her eyebrow twitches up in surprise. 

“Your people? Who might they be?” You can hear the challenge, you’re not stupid. Your spine straightens almost involuntarily and you stiffen your jaw. 

“My people are a bunch of kids who’ve never known anything but the whir of engines. My people were born in the stars. My people were scared when they were _stuffed_ into a rocket and launched down to the ground with no expectation of survival. We were barely on the ground for a full minute before were all knocked out and told we were guests when we were really prisoners” Your own conviction surprises you, but it’s not as if what you said was a lie. The hundred, whether they said it or not, were scared. The girl looks mildly impressed. 

“Well then Clarke kom Skaikru, what do you want?”

 

/////////

 

You’ve drawn the maps to the best of your ability and Anya’s added her own bits of information. Monty even came through by responding to her radio call and getting information she’d missed. The Commander - Lexa, Anya mentioned - is nothing if not thorough. 

She asks question after question, interspersed by the silence of careful consideration. She demands clarification for every line drawn and every approximate distance. She is relentless. 

And you love it. 

You love the way her eyes shine in her single-mindedness. You love the way she listens to the words of her advisors and alters her plans accordingly. You love how still she stands, like she doesn’t have the energy to spare for fidgeting over brainpower. You love the way you can only tell she hates an idea when she closes her eyes slightly too long for a blink. 

You think Anya notices with the way she watches you like a hawk. She’s responsible for what happens to you after all, they’ll need someone to blame if it turns out you’re a spy. Honestly, you get it. But you don’t need Anya to nudge you with her foot every time she catches you staring. You _don’t need it_. 

It’s also incredibly distracting (which, the nudging or the Commander? the world may never know), so you greedily take the time to look at the maps and plans on your own after dinner. The silence is comforting. On the Ark, there was a constant hum, clank, or tapping telling you the ship was still trying to keep you alive. There is none of that on the ground and your heart could burst with how much that makes you feel. 

But so could the presence of the Commander as she quietly slips into the tent. She seems softer with her face clean of warpaint and her shoulders free of most armor and weapons. You want to touch her, to _feel_ the difference between the Commander and the girl underneath. 

“Good evening” she says gently as she approaches the table. 

“Hi” She comes to a stop beside you and you realize just how bizarre this is. No one is 100 percent sold on the fact that you’re not a spy yet, so the fact that she decided to enter a space alone with you is indicative to the fact that she has decided. You hope the lack of weapons means she’s decided you’re not. 

“You should get some rest. We have done as much planning as can be achieved tonight. There will be more to do tomorrow and you must be in peak condition for it” she smiles softly at you and there goes your heart again. You clear your throat awkwardly. 

“I will, I just want to make sure I’m not misremembering something. It could get someone killed” You re-measure a passageway and nod when you find it correct. She hums beside you and lays her hand on top of yours to still it. 

“Yes, but if you do it while you are exhausted, you will certainly make a mistake” She is very close. Close enough that you wonder if she feels the ground shifting beneath her feet too. If she thinks the sky is a slightly different shade of blue as well. 

Her hand squeezes yours. 

 

//////////

 

The next week is nothing but debates, worry, staring at Lexa from across the room, and then finding yourself somehow alone with her. The gentle touches keep happening and it’s so easy to get lost in the way her eyes fond yours. Even when she catches herself , frowns, and shakes herself out of the affection, you know that what she feels for you is deeper than she’s letting herself feel. 

It makes the tips of your toes and fingers tingle. 

However, while it may be a constant in your mind, it is also constantly in the background. Monty tries to report in every day and things are getting worse. Your people have fully realized their status and things are growing more tense with the discovery that some of them have gone missing. The whole war room tenses at that and you chance a look to Anya, knowing exactly where it is they likely went. 

Lexa lifts her chin and makes eye contact with everyone there, eyes steely. Then, she nods. You double down. 

 

///////////

 

“Excuse me” Lexa barely announces herself before entering your small tent. You’re just about to pull on the last of your new armor and you’re glad she didn’t come in ten minutes ago when you were still mostly naked. 

“Come in” you tell her, grabbing the shoulder guard. 

“Are you ready?” Lexa’s hands are latched together behind her back as her eyes roam the small tent. 

“Nearly,” you answer, “I’m just getting the last few pieces on” You pull the strap tight across your chest and move the latch into place. Now just the grieves. 

“I was referring to your mental state” Lexa says as she reaches out for your second grieve. You pull the first tight and she gestures for you to hold our your free arm. As she laces it to your wrist, you have a free moment to just stare at the long lines of her face. Even now, after a week, you can’t help but be awed by her beauty. 

“I’m about to go lay siege to a mountain fortress. How ready can I be?” She laughs and looks up. 

“Well, I must say, you certainly look the part” She barely skims the rest of you before settling on your eyes. Something feels fundamentally different about this conversation. Every other time you’ve spoken, she’s shaken herself from the look she’s giving you now. The fact that she’s letting herself _be_ here now eliminates any kind of mind-to-body filter and you reach out to pull her close by the back of her neck. 

The kiss is still until she fully registers what you’ve done, and then she dives in, her hands clutching your waist and your jaw. The impending battle looks over you and the kiss reflects it, a hint of bite and desperation in each slide of lips or soft moan. You feel her tongue and you can’t help but hold her tighter because frankly, you may never have this again, and as unacceptable as that is, you almost expect it. 

She carefully detaches from you, leaving her hands where they are, but allowing her thumb to gently brush the baby hairs away from your hairline. You revel in it. She kisses you again, barely there, but memorable in a different way than your first. 

And then you march to war. 

 

////////////

 

Like leaving Mount Weather, you barely remember breaking in, just that you do and everything is in chaos. You know you find Monty and there’s Octavia fighting alongside Lincoln (how neat is that?) and you find a way upstairs to free the caged grounders who all immediately join in the fight, despite their weakened states. 

It’s a bloodbath. The Mountain Men never really stood a chance. 

The swords and radiation make for a truly lethal combination that you and Lexa could only have dreamed of. Somehow, the entire plan goes off without a hitch and Dante and Cage Wallace are on their knees in front of Lexa. They clearly have no interest in working with her, the grounders, or the hundred (down a few, but you’ll have to do a headcount at a more convenient time). So she gives them a leaders’ death. 

Their heads roll on the ground moments after she whips her sword from the scabbard. 

 

/////////////

 

The war camp seems much more - well, _is_ \- crowded than before. There is an influx of more than one hundred and fifty people and there is not really enough space for everyone. The village - Ton DC, you’d come to learn - helps in every way it possibly can, but there is only such many people they can support. 

You hear some of the grounders who were in cages talk excitedly about going home, about the lives they were stolen from and even though you keep thinking about the people you killed and the loose heads of the Wallaces, your heart feels lighter. 

Lexa finds you watching the fire after the celebratory feast and sits silently next to you. It’s been almost ten minutes and you’re beginning to wonder if she’s actually going to to talk at all when she finally opens her mouth. 

“You did well today. Thank you for bringing Anya back to me. She was my mentor when I was a child, I see her as an older sister and losing her would have been-” she swallows, “-distressing” You take her hand in yours, damn the people around you.

“I get it. I’m glad we could help all these people” Lexa smiles and nods. 

“Yes. It was a good thing, even if it was hard” You squeeze lightly and the two of you get lost in the flickering fire. You watch it rise and fall, swallowing whole the pieces of wood that are tossed in to keep it alive. It’s captivating and you think you’d be content to sit here with Lexa for the foreseeable future. “What do you and your people plan on doing?” She breaks the silence much easier than you do. You shrug. 

“Stay here? Assimilate? Most of us don’t have trades” Lexa nods slowly as she considers your answer. 

“Are you set on staying here?”

“I don’t know anywhere else” you admit. You were on the dropship, then you were in Mount Weather, and then Anya carried you to Ton DC. You never saw the bits in between. 

“Come to Polis with me. It’s our capitol. I live there. I feel that you will really be able to learn about my people there. Her eyes shift from your eyes, to your lips, and then back up to your eyes. Her hand feels tight and tense in yours, so you massage it, careful to find any knots and smooth them out. 

“I think I could be open to that” She grins and your world tilts on its axis just a _bit_ more.

 

_f._


End file.
